The American Health Care Act Rejects American Values

The Congressional Budget Office score of the American Health Care Act confirms what was clear the moment the bill came out of committee. The legislation that squeaked through the House of Representatives without members waiting for the CBO analysis would precipitate a vast increase in the nation’s uninsured, putting millions of Americans at risk of inadequate health care. We now simply have an educated forecast: 14 million Americans losing health coverage next year, 23 million by 2026.

Congress is attempting to turn back the clock on a strong bipartisan tradition of expanding access to healthcare over the past half century. Since 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the law that created Medicare, the United States has increased access to healthcare under both Republicans and Democrats. President Ronald Reagan expanded Medicaid to cover more low-income children and their mothers; President Bill Clinton created the Children’s Health Insurance Program to provide health coverage for low-income children not covered by Medicaid; and President George W. Bush further expanded the number of Americans who could receive health coverage under Medicaid, and added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Barack Obama, continued this history of Americans caring for Americans, drastically reducing the number of uninsured.

A Medicaid patient at a dental office (Photo by Jessica Hill/AP)

Were the American Health Care Act to become law, for the first time in over 50 years the United States would become a less compassionate society. Is this the America we know? Are these are our values?

Those who promoted the bill made some extraordinary claims: our most vulnerable citizens will have improved healthcare; no one will lose their insurance; people with preexisting conditions will be protected.

But here is the reality:

The bill would slash nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid, the reason so many of our most vulnerable citizens will lose access to healthcare coverage.

Federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics would be blocked for a year, and tax credits could not be used to buy insurance that includes abortion coverage.

States will have the right to allow insurance companies to charge patients with preexisting conditions substantially higher premiums than under the Affordable Care Act, thousands, even tens of thousands more.